


How much honey can the heart stand, I wonder, before it must break?

by sugarwick



Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Child Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Near Death Experiences, Past Abuse, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:10:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23002621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarwick/pseuds/sugarwick
Summary: * REPOSTED
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Reader, Michael Langdon/You
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	1. So beautiful, it’s indecent.

**Author's Note:**

> * REPOSTED

> _She lifted her eyes._   
>  _Blank, lovely eyes._   
>  _Mad eyes. A mad girl._
> 
> _—[ Jean Rhys](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwordsnquotes.com%2Ftagged%2FJean-Rhys&t=Yzk0ODUyODY3YWJhOTNjYmE4ZmFkNWNkMzA2ZDk1OGM3MWY3Yjk3ZSxBT0xJTUVXYQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AhWLJGz-W_8PeFsRwAC6LpA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fholysea.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F173995189769%2Fshe-lifted-her-eyes-blank-lovely-eyes-mad-eyes&m=0), _Wide Sargasso Sea.__

* * *

When he first met you, you were tragic. Cascading locks of hair cupping bruised face, lips taunted plum red as dried blood stuck along where it had been torn _, whose knuckles did you **kiss**? _He wondered, but he doesn’t ask, instead blue hues fluttered curious at your bare feet, soles pressed against cold pavement, a saunter and a skip towards nowhere but him. **“Good afternoon, Neighbor.”** Your voice left quiet and soft, a tender sort of playfulness beneath polite words. Michael shivers, but tells himself it was the frigid air. **“Hello.”** Was his response, hesitant yet his gaze continues to chase after you and your flimsy little sundress, bright yellow and just an inch above your knees, barely hanging by your shoulders with its thin ribbons. A look of concern began to bloom across his face, a childlike distaste along with his furrowed brows and pouted lips. **“Aren’t you cold?”** He began as if to reprimand, but you only smiled, honeyed and sweet, an expression that made his mouth water. **“I like the cold”** You say, hips swaying left and right, dancing almost but not quite. Michael looks at you strange but you don’t mind---- everybody looks at you that way, _looks at you strange_.

 **“Do you?”** You asked, looking at him, doe eyed and curious and Michael contemplated, his frown deepening. **“I don’t”** Eyes trailing down again and this time he notices the bruises along your legs, blacks and blues, purple and pinks, scratches and marks, a constellation of ache painted across otherwise supple skin. _Whose hand **touches** you?_ He wondered, but instead he tells you why he’s sitting on the side of the street, in front of his home where he could have been safety hidden away from the cold. **“I’m waiting for Ms. Mead.”** He doesn’t like being alone, it’s a bit too quiet, a bit too lonesome but that’s a secret he’d like to keep. You only nod at this, a hum of affirmation leaving your mouth.

Closer now, you settle beside him, sat merely inches away and you look at the road ahead. “ **Is she warm? Ms. Mead?”** You asked in earnest and despite the oddness of your inquiry Michael scrutinized for an answer, finding himself eventually nodding, he likes Ms. Mead, it was warm inside the home she made for herself and him. **“She is.”** He shifted to face you, watching lashes flutter and you look so awfully tired, so fragile, _so pitiful_ and yet beautiful all the same. **“Are you warm?”** Another inquiry but he didn’t have to answer because you’re raising your hands and pressing them against the sides of his cheeks, gently holding as though he’s porcelain, **“You are”** You say, a smile blooming along your tender lips and _oh_ how his heart fluttered then, painfully beating against the confines of his chest and he decides he doesn't like that feeling ----- _how terribly alarming it was_.

 **“Your----”** He began to ask for your name though unable to finish when the words _‘whore’_ and _‘bitch’_ reverberated along the quiet streets and they were all for you, the profanities for a wrenched girl prodding for your attention and you gave it to them, **“Ah, I have to go it seems.”** A chuckle, but it had been far removed from amusement, the perpetrator sauntering over as you stood and you know what will happen next, rough hand grabbing you by your hair, pulling hard as though it were your leash and then shoving you forward to which you fall on your knees, bleeding again, and it hurts, **_it hurts_** but you didn’t mind because your father just wants the best for you doesn’t he? What did he say about boys and cunts like you again? And that you shouldn’t go out, _creatures like you_. **“See you around.”** You mouthed when you meet Michael’s gaze, calm blues that seemed fixated on you.

Michael merely watched you in that violence that _should have_ prompted help, but somehow he decides there’s no helping you, that it was where you belong. _It suited you, the bruises and the blood._ With a dry mouth he swallows, licks his lips and steadies his still palpitating heart. He decides to wait for Ms. Mead inside instead.

* * *

**“Some women are poison.”** Miriam had said over dinner but Michael couldn’t quite believe her when he remembers your yellow dress and soft— _too soft_ —smile. He thinks that maybe you’re a flower, forgetting that some flowers are toxic too. **“Do you know who she is?”** Michael asked, food still untouched, mind too occupied, _yellow dress, barefoot, your smile, your bruise, your blood, you, you, **you on your knees**. _

_**(** Ah_, there it was again. Heart fluttering, deplorable and warm ----- are you cursed? Did you curse him? **_)_**

 **“No but it seems like it’s for the best. Some girls, you know. Tricky things. Dangerous.”** Were you dangerous? He’s yet to find out. **“Now. Don’t forget.”** Mead began but Michael is already grinning, he knows what he has to do. **“Right, prayers!”** and he says it a little too excited, prayed a little too diligently.

 _See you around_ was what you said but you don’t think that’s something you can keep because right now you’re on the floor bleeding and you think this time you won’t make it ----- _thank god this time you won’t make it_. Because your blood is pooling behind you, damp and warm as it leaves your body, how many times has your beloved father stab you this time, twelve? Thirty two? You’re not quite sure because you stopped counting after a while, tried to think of something pretty instead, roses and stars and _that boy_.

You’ll die but only for a moment, you feel apologetic when you wake up because you hear your father crying in the other room or what’s left of your father anyway ---- he’s just trying to kill you, set his daughter free but you were loved by the gods or perhaps hated, either way you breathing, continue to breath no matter what and it’s frightening. You feel apologetic, but you get up and saunter towards the kitchen, you’re always so hungry after but there’s nothing to eat but stale cereal and milk. Your father hears you scavenged for your meal and he’s screaming, gurgling words, cursing you and you're muttering sorry between spoon full of soggy cereal and thoughts of your pretty, pretty boy.

  
  



	2. She was poetry, but he couldn’t read.

“He didn't like to be seen needing it -  
as if hunger were a sign of weakness.”

  
― Lionel Shriver, [We Need to Talk About Kevin](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3106720)

* * *

Your father entered the kitchen with tear-stained face, your blood crusty on his faded jeans and button up shirt and with a gun in his right hand he tells you he loves you, ruffles your hair and he frowns at the congealed blood that stained his fingertips. You tell him you love him too and he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes but you know there will be no fighting today, you think he’s given up and you’re right because he tells you to stand up, ask you to give him one last embrace and you do, languid arms tightening around your father’s torso and he tells you again how much he loves you, you say you love him too, you love your daddy so much. You bury your face against his chest and he puts the gun inside his mouth and pulls the trigger. You say sorry when his body hits the floor and you wondered momentarily if he was just like you, maybe he’d wake up in a few but he doesn’t. You waited for a week to make sure, another week and another and when maggots and ants and rats began to eat your father’s corpse, you figured it was about time for you to eat too.

That was two months ago, _you guessed_. You’re not counting, days you learned were trivial but then again it is when you’re infinite. _Still_ , regardless of your indeterminateness you continue to feel, you think if daddy had tried to drown you, you’d live through the burning sensation of breathlessness, lungs growing heavy with water until it burst open, luckily he was never very creative and you are only ever mutilated or starved—now hunger is an ache that you hated the most, the slow and steady pain that reverberated throughout your body--- _your own goddamn stomach trying to eat you alive_. So, naturally hunger must be avoided at all caused, a little knife to your heart for a warm meal is something you’d consider, you’d also consider theft.

Theft is easier, begging even more so, but sometimes people are mean, couldn’t allow you to have that one little piece of bread, decided instead that pretty little thieves like you must be punished. So you’re on the pavement, misses baker who you thought had the kindest face now kicking you over your stomach, again and again until you’re trembling and coughing and wheezing an apology, your daddy did tell you not to take things that aren’t yours, but you were so hungry. And when you’re hungry you forget. (You even forgot you wanted to see that pretty boy again.)

* * *

Ms. Miriam Mead looks at you, remembers _not you_ but your family. She’s the anti-Christ loving bitch and yet somehow your family is the strange one and perhaps the rumors were true because when she looks at you, she thinks you’re perfect. _‘Best kind of girl to sacrifice to Satan’ sort of perfect_. And you? You just want your fucking bread. **“My kid is having a party”** She says, smiling at you, offering a hand like some Walmart version of Saint Anthony the Abbot and who were you to say no when your stomach is growling. **“He’s going to leave soon.”** Mead added, solemnly, sad and you take her hands. **“I’ll bring some for Papa.”** _You forget when you’re hungry_. **“Okay”** Mead nods even though she knows, your father’s rotting body dragged out by the authorities from your undoubtedly filthy house. _Ah, you probably need a bath too huh?_ Supposed, she should properly prepare you.

So she does. She takes you home and makes you a bath, promise you food but only when you’re clean, because, as Ms. Mead says **, “A dirty girl don’t deserve any food.”** and you believe her. When she tells you to take off your clothes, you do as your told and when she tells you to wait in the tub while she washes your dress you stay there even if it was cold. Mead may have wanted you clean but that didn’t mean she needed to give you warm water to enjoy yourself in, that was serve for her and her dearest Michael.

Michael which enters the bathroom expecting his bath, _not you **in** his bath_. Eyes widen, lights flickering and he looks at you almost horrified—because there’s something else lingering beneath his pretty blue hues. **“You.”** An accused, a demand for an explanation but you only smile, lifting a hand to wave at him and when his gaze drifts onto your palm, trailing onto your wrist, arms and shoulders, he began to realize he could see you underneath crystal clear water. **“I’m here to eat.”** You explained but it doesn’t answer anything, almost thought that you meant him --- _that you wanted to eat him_. Blood rushing to his face and somewhere else, twitching and tense, painted dusty pink along the apples of his cheeks and he’s dizzy suddenly, the light flickers again and his throat is closing. He’s hungry too, he wanted to eat after dinner, Ms. Mead said she’ll make something special for him, something good before he leaves. _Was it you? Were you the special something for him?_

Mead enters the bathroom, you on the tub still and Michael watching you too intently. She’s only sorry that he has to see something so filthy before dinner. **“A guest.”** She cuts through the silence, both of their gazes falling onto their pseudo mother. Michael doesn’t answer, swallows instead and walks out of the room, he says he’s hungry, says he’ll wait in the kitchen but instead he goes to his room, he’s hungry, really he is, but it seems like it’s not for the food anymore.

* * *

You’ll find yourself in their dining table soon after, sitting in between Mead and Michael as they say their prayers. You don’t pray but you do that night, didn’t really matter that it was for his _malevolence_ , there’s _food on the table and that’s what really mattered_ you tell yourself when your plate is steaming warm with mashed potatoes, string beans and stake. You eat with your hands, pick up the under-cooked meat and bite into it, a quiet satisfied moan leaving your lips. Michael decides he hates you then, that it really did suit you best when you’re beaten on the ground. **“Delicious.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * WILL NOT BE CONTINUED.


End file.
